About Me

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Abbott and Costello in Hollywood (MGM,1945)

Charles and I went back to his
place and I ran him the 1945 film Abbott and Costello in Hollywood, in which the titular comedy team (I’m pretty sure
they hold the record for the number of times actors got their own names
included as parts of the titles of their films) co-starred with Robert Stanton,
Dick Haymes’ brother, in a pretty obvious reworking of the Marx Brothers’ A
Night at the Opera with a movie studio
instead of an opera company. There’s the arrogant established star who thinks
he can get the newly discovered ingenue to go to bed with him in exchange for a
major part, and the young unknown guy whom the comedians help to replace the
arrogant established star so he and the girl can romance each other on screen
as well as in real life. There’s also an exciting thrill climax on a
rollercoaster that’s set to blow up on cue, on which Costello and the arrogant
established star are fighting even though no one is supposed to be on the set
except dummies in the cars. This occurs right after Robert Stanton and a cast
of hundreds, directed by Charles Walters — S. Sylvan Simon did the bulk of the
film but Walters directed the dance numbers — have sung and danced a paean to
the wonders and joys of a carnival midway, to a song written by Hugh Martin and
Ralph Blane, whose work here compares to their efforts in Meet Me in
St. Louis about the same way Harold Arlen’s
and Yip Harburg’s songs for the Marx Brothers film At the Circus compare to their songs in The Wizard of
Oz. I found the comedy scenes held up
surprisingly well, despite Abbott and Costello’s oft-criticized (even then) reliance on old jokes — one critic dismissed them
with the line, “Some of their gags are older than they are!” — and Robert Stanton, though he had all the
personality of a stuffed pig, did
look nice and sing well. Lucille Ball and Preston Foster appeared as guests in
this one — just as seven years earlier Lucy had made a movie with the Marx
Brothers (Room Service) but had
had no comedy scenes with them, so here she made a movie with Abbott and
Costello but had no comedy scenes with them, either! — 2/28/98

•••••

Our “feature” was Abbott and Costello in Hollywood, made in 1945 and the third of three films Bud
Abbott and Lou Costello made for MGM. Their main contract was with Universal,
but their Universal contract provided that they could make one film per year
for another studio, so in 1942, at the height of their popularity (their
star-making film, Buck Privates,
was the biggest-grossing film of 1941 — amazing when you consider that was also
the year of Citizen Kane, The Maltese Falcon, Here Comes Mr. Jordan,
Sullivan’s Travels, Sergeant York, Meet John Doe and John Ford’s Academy Award winner How Green Was My Valley), they signed a three-film contract for the one film
a year they were allowed to make elsewhere than at Universal. MGM kicked off
the contract with a 1942 remake of the 1929 RKO film Rio Rita, with Kathryn Grayson and John Carroll in the leads
originally played by Bebe Daniels and John Boles, and Abbott and Costello
taking over the comedy parts originally played by Bert Wheeler and Bob Woolsey.
In 1944 (they didn’t make a film at MGM in 1943 because Costello fell ill with
rheumatic fever) they did an Arabian Nights spoof called Lost in a
Harem on the sets of the just-completed
non-musical version of Kismet
with Ronald Colman and Marlene Dietrich (a pity MGM didn’t make Lost
in a Harem in color the way they did Kismet!). Then, with the box-office take on their Universal
films falling, MGM put them into this one in 1945 and did not renew their
contract. Abbott and Costello In Hollywood is basically a veiled remake of the Marx Brothers’ A Night
at the Opera, copying its romantic triangle
— established singer/actor and big-time asshole Gregory LeMaise (Carleton G.
Young) thinks he can get into the pants of aspiring starlet Claire Warren
(Frances Rafferty) by promising her the female lead in his new film, but she
only has eyes for unknown crooner Jeff Parker (billed here as Robert Stanton
but later known as Bob Haymes) — and casting the comedians as barbers turned
up-and-coming agents Buzz Kurtis (Bud Abbott) and Abercrombie (Lou Costello)
who worm their way into representing Parker and getting him the big romantic
role after they frame LeMaise for murder. (He’s supposed to have killed
Abercrombie, and the scene in which the two — both wearing outrageously fake
beards — come across each other in a bar is delicious.) Abbott and Costello
insisted on Martin A. Gosch, the producer of their radio show, as producer of
this film as well — and Gosch also co-wrote the “original” story with ex-Marx
Brothers gagman (and future Addams Family show-runner) Nat Perrin, with Perrin and Lou Breslow collaborating on
the script.

Surprisingly, there aren’t any of the elaborate A&C word-play
routines here (it’s one of the few films they made that does not credit the “Who’s on First?” author, John Grant, as
a writer), but there are enough delicious slapstick sequences — especially one
at the beginning when Costello, as an aspiring but spectacularly incompetent
barber, tries to shave “Rags” Ragland (a great comedian who’s largely forgotten
today because he died young — age 40 — after making only one movie after this
one), and one at the end in which Costello and LeMaise end up fighting each
other on a roller-coaster that, unbeknownst to them, is supposed to be blown up
as the conclusion of the spectacular musical number that’s going to complete
the film LeMaise got aced out of by A&C’s frame. Abbott and
Costello in Hollywood isn’t a great movie —
few of their films were (perhaps because they never got a truly great director
— one wonders what Leo McCarey, who worked so memorably with Laurel and Hardy
and the Marx Brothers, could have done with them) — and in the middle of
shooting it they were called back to Universal to film a version of “Who’s on
First?” for inclusion in The Naughty Nineties (and quite frankly that classic routine is even
funnier than anything in Abbott and Costello in Hollywood!), but it’s still a lot of fun even though the
implicit promise of a look at some of MGM’s star names isn’t really kept. We
get to see director Robert Z. Leonard shoot a sequence which, predictably,
Costello ruins (later we get to see Costello impersonate a dummy and mess up
another scene for one of the film’s comic high points), and we get to see
another sequence in which Preston Foster and Lucille Ball enact a scene from a
Civil War drama. (That’s right: Lucille Ball, one of the most brilliant
physical comediennes of all time, made movies with both the Marx Brothers and Abbott and Costello and didn’t
get any comedy scenes with either of them!) Aside from a cute scene in the MGM
schoolhouse with child star Jackie “Butch” Jenkins, that’s about all you get
here — Abbott and Costello went to Hollywood and all they got to meet were the
“B”-listers — though the film at least benefits from some infectious songs by
Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, coming off the high of writing the brilliant score
for Meet Me in St. Louis and here
coming up with tunes that, like the film itself, are pleasant and entertaining
even if not great — though I’d seen this film with Charles before and didn’t
remember it as being as good, or as funny, as it seems now! — 4/26/14